Troubleshooting Tips

Check the following areas to ensure that they are not the source of the problem:

• Interface Boards
• Installation
• Automatically Restarting the Server
• Configuration

Interface Boards

The following list contains suggestions for solving problems with interface boards.

• Use boards that are certified by the Novell Labs^TM group. Novell Labs bulletins are available at the WWW location
  http://support.novell.com and on the Novell Support Connection CD-ROM.
• If you are using IBM* token ring boards, a shared RAM size of 16 KB is recommended.
• In most cases, the router-associated LAN and WAN boards can be installed with the Video Memory Addressing set to the factory default settings. However, the default settings for some boards might conflict with already installed VGA/EGA boards. To eliminate the conflict, reconfigure either the VGA/EGA board or the network interface board.
• If you are routing on an Ethernet board, set the maximum physical receive packet size to at least 1524 in the STARTUP.NCF file. If you are routing on a token ring board, set the value to at least 4540. These values include 10 bytes for PPP overhead.
• Before you install a LAN or WAN board, make sure that you check all the available interrupts, I/O base addresses, and memory map addresses for all boards. To avoid conflicts between board parameter settings, verify that the same values are not being used by multiple boards. For reference, the values typically used by a PC are as follows:

  COM1 uses IRQ-4, port=3F8-3FF

  COM2 uses IRQ-3, port=2F8-2FF

  LPT1 uses IRQ-7, port=378-37F

  LPT2 uses IRQ-5, port=278-27F

  To determine valid settings for IRQ, I/O base, and memory locations, refer to the hardware documentation for each device. As you configure the router and WAN links, record this information on a worksheet to avoid any conflicts.

• The Novell NW2000 and Synchronous/+ boards have switches for changing only the I/O base address. The interrupt and memory are software-driven. When you use the Novell Internet Access Server Configuration utility (NIASCFG) to configure WAN boards, you can configure the I/O base address, interrupt, and memory map address. Verify that the NIASCFG I/O base settings match the jumper settings on the board.

  The Synchronous/+ and NW2000 boards use a shared memory interface to the PC. Multiple Synchronous/+ boards can share the same memory address and multiple NW2000 boards can share the same memory address; however, different types of boards cannot be assigned the same address. When assigned an address below 1 MB, a Synchronous/+ board uses 64 KB of shared memory and an NW2000 board uses 16 KB of shared memory. When assigned an address above 1 MB, a Synchronous/+ board uses 512 KB of shared memory and an NW2000 board uses 256 KB of shared memory.

• When a command is issued to unload a board driver, all instances of that driver are unloaded. For example, if two Synchronous/+ boards are loaded, an UNLOAD SYNCPLUS command unloads both boards and all calls on these boards are terminated.

Installation

The following list contains suggestions for solving problems with the product installation.

• For new installations of the routing features, you must choose to convert the commands in your AUTOEXEC.NCF file to NIASCFG commands automatically when you are prompted to do so within NIASCFG. However, if you choose to convert the AUTOEXEC.NCF file commands manually, all LOAD commands for LAN and WAN drivers and all BIND commands must be commented out within, or removed from, the AUTOEXEC.NCF file. Table 4 shows the protocol LOAD and BIND commands that must be commented out of the file.

  
  Table 4. LOAD and BIND Command Removal

  Protocol	LOAD and BIND Commands to Comment Out
  Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX)	IPX
  AppleTalk*	APPLETLK ATLKSNMP
  TCP/IP	TCPIP TCONFIG IPCONFIG
  Other	ROUTE (LOAD commands only)

• Do not remove other services from the AUTOEXEC.NCF file if they are present; for example:
  • NFS*
  • AFP*
  • ATPS

• If you plan to use this software in combination with another Novell product, refer to the README file of that product for any special installation instructions required for your version of the product. The order of installation is especially important if you are using NetWare for Macintosh*, NetWare for SAA*, or NetWare for NFS with the Novell Internet Access Server 4.1 routing software.

Automatically Restarting the Server

You can configure your router/server to restart automatically by creating a .NCF file (located in SYS: SYSTEM) that contains these commands:

REMOVE DOS

DOWN

EXIT

The .NCF file is created with any text editor, and can be created remotely using RCONSOLE. To restart the router/server, use RCONSOLE to attach to that router and run the appropriate .NCF file. Make sure that you have the SERVER command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file of the router/server so that when you run the .NCF file to restart the server, the server comes up automatically.

Configuration

The following list contains suggestions for solving problems with the product configuration.

• Obtain the latest .LAN files and .LDI files from the WWW location http://support.novell.com, CompuServ, or your network interface board vendor.
• Always use NIASCFG to configure the routing and remote access software.
• NIASCFG will not run if INETCFG is loaded.
• NIASCFG provides a series of easy-to-use menus for router configuration. It also allows you to view and, in some cases, edit for troubleshooting purposes the configuration information file (NETINFO.CFG), the AUTOEXEC.NCF file, and the messages generated during a system restart. Finally, NIASCFG provides several layers of context-sensitive help to make the configuration process quicker and easier.
• Do not modify the NETINFO.CFG file found in the SYS:ETC subdirectory.
• The NETINFO.CFG file contains the LOAD and BIND commands you configured with NIASCFG. If you use the INSTALL utility to create an AUTOEXEC.NCF file after completing your configuration with NIASCFG, the LOAD and BIND commands in your system memory are written to the AUTOEXEC.NCF file. We do not recommend this procedure because it can create duplicate entries of the LOAD and BIND commands already in your NETINFO.CFG file.
• If the NETINFO.CFG file is flagged READ ONLY, and if you change a field in NIASCFG (for example, IPX Network Number under Configure NIAS > Protocols and Routing > Bindings), NIASCFG reflects the change but NETINFO.CFG does not. No change can be made to the NETINFO.CFG file because it is flagged READ ONLY. However, NIASCFG warns you when this occurs, indicating that the NETINFO.CFG file cannot be changed. To save the change, flag NETINFO.CFG as READ/WRITE, return to NIASCFG, and reenter the change.
• Make sure that you configure the proper frame types when you are binding IP, IPX, and AppleTalk to a LAN interface. Note that the default frame type for IPX is Ethernet_802.2.
• Do not load and bind the bridge from the command line.